Lois Anne Venne

Lois Anne Venne, 82, of Sioux City, IA formerly of Escanaba, MI, died October 12, 2022, at a local nursing home.

A Memorial service and visitation with the family will be held from 2:00-4:00 PM on Saturday, October 15th at Whispering Creek Active Retirement Community, located at 2609 Nicklaus Blvd in Sioux City, with the service starting at 3:30 PM. Pastor Jay Denne will be officiating.

A separate Celebration of Life service will be held during the coming summer of 2023 in Escanaba, MI, after which her ashes will be interred with her husband’s at Holy Cross Cemetery. Details for that will be forthcoming.

Online condolences may be made to the family at www.christysmith.com

Lois Wendelcke was born June 8, 1940, on Staten Island in New York City. She grew up in Manhattan and graduated from Charles Evans Hughes High School. Anyone who has met her will agree that Lois was a proud and feisty New Yorker and even maintained some of the linguistic stylings all throughout her life to prove it. As a New York Regents Scholar, she went on to attend Michigan State University where she met the love of her life Stanley R. Venne, Jr. The couple were married September 2, 1961 in the chapel on the grounds of MSU in East Lansing, MI. They moved to Queens in New York, then in 1965 they moved to Milwaukee, WI until 1968 when they moved to Escanaba, MI where Lois worked for the Escanaba Area Public Schools as a teacher’s aide and reading specialist and spent several years serving on the Delta County Mental Health Board.

More than anything, Lois enjoyed spending time with her dear friends and family and sharing good conversation. She also enjoyed traveling throughout the United States with her husband (and sometimes a friend or two) in their motorhome, playing bridge, sewing, knitting, making the most wonderful Halloween costumes for her grandchildren, and reading mysteries, especially those by her favorite author Dick Francis.

Lois was an incredibly resilient woman who never let life’s adversities hold her back. She lived her life to the fullest.

Surviving are her 4 children: Stanley R. Venne, III of Phoenix, AZ and his children Hunter and Cody, Denise Gallagher & her husband Patrick of Phoenix, AZ and their children Cully and Brodey, Stephen Venne & his wife Beth of Sioux City, IA, and their children Max, Olivia, Jake, Sophia and Nate, and Elizabeth Carabas & her husband Themios of Portland, OR, and their children Alexos, Elena and Dorian. She is also survived by a large and loving extended family including many dear friends - as she was fond of saying, “My friends are family.”

She was preceded in death by her mother, Mathilda Blum Weigl, and her husband Stanley R. Venne, Jr.

The family would like to thank the staff at Whispering Creek for the love and wonderful care Lois received for the past 6 years, as well as Regency Square and St. Croix Hospice for their attentive care and support in her final days.

Memorials may be directed to the Salvation Army of Sioux City, IA or Escanaba, MI.